Barack Obama sinks Mitt Romney’s battleship in third and final debate

Barack Obama earned a narrow win over Mitt Romney in the third and final US presidential debate on foreign policy, with the president sarcastically chiding his Republican challenger over his lack of knowledge of the country’s military.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are neck and neck in the race for the White House (Picture: AP)

While analysts and snap polls attributed the win to Mr Obama, the Democrat landed few knockout blows against Mr Romney, who has gathered momentum since a resounding win in the first debate.

In a comparatively low-key debate at Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida, moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS, the candidates were largely in agreement on a range of issues, including on Israel, no military intervention in Syria, sanctions against Iran, playing hardball with China and withdrawing from Afghanistan by 2014.

Former Massachusetts governor Mr Romney congratulated Mr Obama on the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden, but called for a ‘comprehensive [counterterrorism] strategy’.

‘We can’t kill our way out of this,’ the Republican, who barely mentioned the attack upon the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, added.

Mr Obama, who was also credited with winning the second debate between the two men, took a more aggressive approach against his opponent, saying: ‘I know you haven’t been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you’ve offered an opinion you’ve been wrong.’

In one of the standout comments that took off on social network sites and dominated the online debate, Mr Obama hit out at Mr Romney when he complained the US navy was too small and contained fewer ships than World War 1.

‘Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets,’ the president said.

‘We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships.’

Mr Romney also appeared to stumble in exchanges on Syria and Iran, when he said the former was the latter’s last remaining Arab ally in the Middle East and its route to the sea, despite Iran not sharing a land border with Syria and having a 1,500-mile coastline along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

A CBS poll said 53 per cent of people thought Mr Obama had won the debate, compared to 23 per cent who regarded Mr Romney as the winner and 24 per cent who saw it as a draw.

CNN meanwhile awarded the debate 48 per cent to Mr Obama and 40 per cent to Mr Romney.

A poll for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal carried out before the debate put both candidates at 47 per cent on the national stage.

With the race to the White House now entering its final fortnight, Mr Obama and Mr Romney are expected to begin intensive campaigning in nine swing states that will be crucial to determining who the next president will be.